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xssve -> RE: Misogyny and BDSM (1/4/2010 4:28:07 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Aswad
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ORIGINAL: xssve
Not at all - unless you make an assumption that the needs of one individual are greater than another's via some other species of assessment, you can safely assume that the needs of all individuals involved are equivalent, ceteris paribus.
So long as you recognize the difference between an assumption and objective fact, I don't have a problem with the approach.
Any other assumption would be arbitrary, so pick your poison - it becomes functionally objective by process of elimination.
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ORIGINAL: Aswad
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I don't know quite what the rest of this means - there is always a question of the "the greater good", but typically, this requires some degree of convincing, i.e., argument, that it is the greater good - it's never entirely axiomatic, even though it might be treated as such.
Actually, I would rather argue that I'm both unqualified to determine the greater good, and somewhat ambivalent about its importance in the first place. There is no requirement for ethics to take the good of others into account, either, though one might argue that ethics that don't at least address the matter of how to relate to others is fairly pointless. Any ethic that does take the good of others into account might be more successful in the long run, though, and most seem to favor an ethic that does. Arguably, enlightened self interest and various other strategies can also yield comparable success, but strategies aren't ethics as such (but one can be built on enlightened self interest, certainly).
The very first right elucidated in the Bill of Rights is freedom of speech - all political power derives from consensus, and issues of group utility are typically hashed out at the group level - leaders who make bad decisions for the group tend be ignored, unless they command enough of a consensus to keep the rest in line, usually through less than ethical means - dictatorship, etc., which tends to be relatively unstable in proportion to how unethical it is - when the level of dissent rises high enough, there's usually a revolution.
"Enlightened self interest" is a misnomer, there really is only self interest, i.e., nobody is qualified to make decisions for everybody.
I'm very honest and ethical in my business dealings because I acquire a reputation for honesty thereby, and that generates more business - others can't resist the allure of the big easy, and if we're talking fuck you money, then it becomes that much trickier from the perspective of individual utility if you remove conscience form the equation, which you kind of have to, since it's presence cannot consistently be predicted.
It happens to be a major flaw in moral systems predicated on it's presence, which is why these systems tend to become increasingly Draconian. "If only" doesn't work in the long term, statistically speaking, opportunism is going to arise sooner or later - opportunism is also self interest, and it's invariably both "enlightened" and "rational" if it it happens to benefit you.
The only real difference is between short term self interest and long term self interest.
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ORIGINAL: Aswad
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I think you may be talking about Les Miserables, and this is exactly the sort of situation that benefits from a cost:benefit analysis - if one assumes that eating enough to stay alive is a requirement necessary for all people equally in order to maintain some level of utility.
It was the furthest thing from my mind, actually.
Utility isn't something I generally consider too much in my ethics.
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In short, in any group of theoretically autonomous humans, the requirement to maximize their individual utility must be assumed to be equal.
Assumed by whom?
Um, it is generally assumed by the individuals in question, you seem to be consistently assuming some external authority here - there is no other quantifiable or empirically demonstrable perceptual entity, there's nobody but us Chickens.
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ORIGINAL: Aswad
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It's pretty straightforward unless you're attempting to fit it into some other meta system - it is the meta system, and you'll find it underlies almost every ethical system in praxis - if for no other reason than any other point of reference is necessarily arbitrary.
Any point of reference, including that one, is arbitrary, yes. You're making it less than straightforward, though, and are omitting idiosyncratic ethos, as well as the ethos of cultures that have overriding values that are not based on utility or equality of import. For instance, there are several cultures where a group (gender, ethnic, religious, whatever) doesn't constitute a significant concern in terms of ethics (heck, even the species barrier itself is an ever-present example that any ethic that condones existing is an ethic that is at least partially agent-centric, etc.).
It's arbitrary in that it predominantly applies to inter and intrahuman interactions, yes - ethics and morality are human constructs and are relative to human experience, but you have to start somewhere if you want a practical system and not a bunch of navel gazing.
We can include other species in our perceptual framework, but we have no particular incentive to start there, or we would have stuck to animism.
Again, it's objective from the standpoint of human perception, and again, by process of elimination since it's difficult to imagine any other perceptual framework other than our own that isn't simply abstract/hypothetical, and still the result of our perceptions, regardless.
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ORIGINAL: Aswad
If you want to discuss the strategic aspects of human behavior, that's fine. Ethics and morals are implemented in ways that are not exclusively strategic, however, whether individually or as groups, and the theoretic aspect isn't strategic in my view, though those with certain forms will be selected for in a certain setting, of course (hardly a phenomenon that merits covering seperately from the general evolution of ideas).
Um, not really - because ethics isn't really a system in the sense that morality is a system, it's more of a process of making distinctions between one act and another, based on perception, and argued from the perspective of both perception and empirical demonstration or theoretical modeling of cause and effect.
In that sense, it's no more a system than the theory of cause and effect itself is a "system" - it's an observation: "shit happens". Insofar as it's a system, it's more akin to science, which is a system of observing, analyzing and explaining phenomena.
Science is not an institution at it's core, it's a process; the scientific method - people who do science, do tend to form institutions, true, but that isn't "science" it's a community of people who practice the scientific method. When people say "science is a religion", they're bullshitting; religion is based on revelation, science is based on empirical evidence and replicable results of experimentation and observation.
So, even though religious institutions and scientific institutions may resemble each other in some ways - even in many ways - the reason is that they're both human institutions, so this shouldn't be that surprising, and it says more about humans than it says about either science or religion.
Ethics arises from the scientific method and are essentially tactical, although strategic "rules" can be inferred from them - morality arises from the religious impulse, typically revelation, and is almost invariably strategic, and relativistic in that it's based on political consensus, broad and universal, or minority and coerced - doesn't mean all ethical analysis is axiomatically accurate, but it is arguable and thus self correcting in a way that revelation is not.
We're doing it right now - if there is a flaw, I trust it will be revealed eventually through the dialectic we are establishing here.
Those things in moral systems that are broad and universal tend to pass ethical muster IMO, The Golden Rule, etc.
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ORIGINAL: Aswad
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I'm not at all sure how you mean it invalidates itself, something can be ethically neutral, i.e., neither bad nor good, here nor there - taking a shit is ethically neutral unless it happens to be in somebody else's bed.
I was misreading your post, I think.
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I never said it couldn't get complicated, questions of group vs. individual utility invariably are - compromising the utility a certain number of individuals might be rationalized if a significant threat to group utility is at stake, war for example - considerably less so if it's merely a question of convenience for certain other individuals claiming to represent the group, group values, etc. - follow it to the fundamental fulcrum of any given issue though, and it's invariably about how costs and benefits are being distributed.
That's more a matter of politics than ethics. And, as I said, utility need not be foundational for any ethic.
What then, prithee tell, might be?
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ORIGINAL: Aswad
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And, on the contrary, unethical behavior is typically self-limiting while ethical behavior tends to maximize group utility - as in business ethics for examples, where enforceable contracts are the foundation of economic activity, or the NAZI's you mention, who paid a heavy price in the long run for devoting critical infrastructure to eradicating the bulk of their trained labor pool.
The Nazis paid a heavy price, yes. As did others. What I said was that there were beneficial, unintended consequences to their actions, as well. Arguably a function of their failure, and of our opposition to them, but also thought well of. The notion of limiting an ethic to one country wasn't mentioned on my part, I think? (If it was, I apologize.) Business ethics... your theory contradicts an observation I've made that much unethical business is between people at an individual level, and these are quite able to get away with activities whose backlash and self limiting effects tend to land on the business entity they are enabled to act as. Heck, more than one person has pointed out that, clinically, a business entity is essentially a sociopath.
Sorry, I'm getting too sluggish to edit this into a semblence of cohesion, and I apparently keep missing your point.
I may give it another try when I have had some sleep.
Health,
al-Aswad.
Well invoking the law of unintended consequences is to return to the other discussion raging previously regarding consequentialist vs. deontological ethics - I'm not entirely sure you can dispense with either of them - we are often inclined to be more forgiving of ethical lapses when the consequences increase our utility, but intent plays a role in human behavior that is difficult to simply ignore, regardless of the consequences, agian, based on the principles of cause and effect - it may have worked out this time for the best, but we prefer to avoid that approach in the future, as this sort of result is not predictable, and often comes at heavy price.
WWI for example began over perceived ethical issues: German Imperialism vs. Serbian Nationalism, and numerous ethical issues were raised during it's course over various externalities: chemical warfare, treatment of wounded, etc., which led to the League of Nations and the Geneva Convention - but it was not strictly necessary to have fought that war in order to accomplish those things.
Business ethics do happen to be a cogent issue at the moment, and there is a very significant question here concerning what the proper balance between group and individual utility might be, expressed culturally as regulation, since as I pointed out before, relying on conscience alone appears to be an inadequate and largely delusional approach.
Perhaps we can focus on that for a bit if we can establish a mutually acceptable premise.
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